Thinking of making up some varmint loads for my Tikka T3.

Rifle is on this thread 223 16" barrel

The rifle itself is accurate enough.

Was looking at 30-40 grain Berger or Hornady pills.

Will the 1-12 twist be okay for such load work?

Berger recommends 1:15 for there 30gn pill. Heard good things about the 40gr V-Max factory load being pretty flat.

If it works I can sell my 17hmr.

I have some fast powders. H4198 may do the trick. Have H322 also.

Thoughts?

it will work fine...

my favorite bullets for the bolt action 223, have become some of the lead free offerings from Hornady and Nosler....

they are longer than lead bullets and have proven more accurate... we don't have lead restrictions here in Oregon, but trying some and the accuracy was an improvement over non lead..

I have really been enjoying the 35 grain NTX from Hornady, and Nosler's 35 and 50 grain lead free.. the 40 grain lead free is a long as the 50 grain B/Tip...

and the lighter weights, you can really ratchet up the MV on them...

the 35 gr NTX, can easily be ran at 3800 to 4000 fps.. and it is longer than the 40 grain BTip...

My .223 just loves the 40gr V-max amd H-335, its a 1 in 9 twist though.

Your twist rate is not an issue for light .224" bullets. That's not to say that your rifle will necessarily shoot them accurately because there are all kinds of variables; just that there is no problem with the rate of twist.

I've had excellent luck with all of the 40 grain polymer tipped bullets I've used, which includes the Hornady V-Max, Nosler Ballistic Tip, and new Nosler Varmaggedon. I haven't used the Sierra Blitzking 40 grainer, but other Blitzkings have shot alomost identical to the Nosler B.Tips.

I found my Contender shot flat based 40's from Hornady & Speer quite well. My 700 Classic in .223 does pretty good with the new Nosler 40gr lead free but they are a lot longer. I'm not positive about the Rem twist rate.

My CZ 1-12 shoots both 40gr Vmax and 40gr,45gr Sierras well with 335 and Varget using the listed start loads.If your planning to hunt coyote I would go with 55gr.

I've got a 1-12 twist on one of my .223s and it loves the 40 grainers, both Nosler and Hornady. Accuracy has been great. I've tried five powders and the rifle shot well with all of them. They were H-335, W-748, A-2200, Ball C-2, and H-322. Std primers were used in all loads.
Max